'Felix culpa'

[Byron Jack Gaist]

What is the Orthodox approach to the Roman Catholic doctrine of the "fortunate fall" or Felix Culpa? It is basically the idea that the Fall had to occur in order for man to experience Divine grace and in order for our choices for good or evil to be meaningful - The Fall of Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fall_of_Man).

Also, can someone clarify whether the Felix Culpa refers to the sin of eating from the Tree of Knowledge, or to the Crucifixion, or to both?

In Christ
Byron

[Theopesta]

brother Byron I am trying to study more the original sin and the concequences of the falling.
but if it is "fortune fall" why the death enter to the creation? and why the bitterness of the passions contaminate every thing? I think GOD's will is a thing differ from GOD's permission

GOD's will always every holy and good and innocent

but as god creates man with free will HE permits to man to make what he want after HE gives him many gifts according to our nature bear

I wait response to learn more

[Theopesta]

the original text says (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fall_of_Man):

Felix Culpa (the fortunate fall)

One interpretation of the doctrine of the fall is that it is necessary in order human's might benefit from God's grace. It includes the notion that, had mankind not been given the capacity for evil, our choice through free will to either serve God or not would not have been as meaningful. For example:

"A fall it might seem, just as a vicious man sometimes seems degraded below the beasts, but in promise and potency, a rise it really was" (Sir O. Lodge, "Life and Matter", p. 79

There is, however, a second interpretation of 'felix culpa.' If Eve had not given the fruit to Adam to eat, none of us would be here to enjoy this wonderful world.}

1- I feel this interpretaion not the upright and neutral about the falling and the redemption

2- we not enjoy in wonderful life this opposite to what GOD say to adam and eve after the falling

3- when the logos incarnated although he is the mighty ONE HE not enjoyed he suffer --paradox of the incarnation of GOD

4- I do not know if I deviate from the core of the original Q

5- if there is any err in the expressions, please correct and clarify to me

[Michael Howard Lake]

Dear Sister Theopesta and Mr. Gaist,

I believe that your intuitions are correct, Sister. "Felix Culpa" is not part of Orthodox soteriology.

Augustine's doctrine assumes that our final end, that is, union with Christ, is greater now that Adam and Eve sinned and Jesus became incarnate, suffered, died, and rose that we too might rise above sin. Augustine believed that Adam and Eve, without the Fall, would never have merited a portion of Christ's mystical Life that we have through the Eucharist.

The Fathers of the East would agree with what you have written, Sister, concerning the needless suffering the Fall has brought with it. There is absolutely no reason that Christ would not have incarnated if the Fall had never occurred. This means that our beatitude is not therefore dependent on the Fall. God forbid!

This is one reason why some Orthodox writers question Augustine's appellation as "Saint." Of course, Father Seraphim Rose of happy memory warns us not to disparage Augustine's sanctity just because some of his theology was faulty.

I remain ever

Your brother in IHC XPC,

Michael

[Zavulon]

Dear Byron,=20

The best orthodox answer about original sin and the cause of death can = be found here.

= http://www.romanity.org/htm/rom.10.en.original_sin_according_to_st._paul.= 01.htm

Zavulon.

[Byron Jack Gaist]

Dear Sr Theopesta, Mr Lake and Zavulon

Thank you all for your responses.

Zavulon, the above link is not functional, but I have previously read the article you refer to, and it is indeed very enlightening.

The idea of the "Felix Culpa" also seems to me to be a misinterpretation of the events of the Fall, and could perhaps lead to a false overestimation of the purpose of sin in salvation - as if we ought to sin, in order to be saved (one sect, the Khlysty, did believe this). What do others think about this?

Also, can someone clarify whether, from a Roman Catholic perpective,the Felix Culpa refers to the sin of eating from the Tree of Knowledge, or to the Crucifixion, or to both?

in Christ
Byron

[Byron Jack Gaist]

BTW Sr Theopesta, you make an important distinction between God's Will and His Permission. One of the difficulties I have with this, is in imagining a Perfect Being, but what He, omniscient God, wills is not the same as what He permits: in other words, if He has permitted it, has He not also willed it?

In Christ
Byron

[Theopesta]

1- please br. byron you can feel free and any one else to say theopesta without adressing

2- to be honest I take this distinction from a lecture to H.H. the alexdandrian coptic patriark and after considering it strike me very mach

3- what the mean of: BTW

4- if Iam not mistaken we not lose our free will after falling also our will not as god will
the illness enter to the will by the sin the grace of god not work without our freedom if we not want the holy will GOD not perish us although HE can but HE permits to us to make our will which is not his own

welcome with any corrections
in one christ theopesta

[Theopesta]

dear celestial friends:

I find this poem to:William Blake(1757-1827) in the same issue but I can not understand what he want to say:

The Garden of Love (1794)

I went to the Garden of Love
And saw what I never had seen:
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.

And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And "Thou shalt not" writ over the door,
So I turned to the Garden of Love
That so many sweet flowers bore;

And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tomb-stones where flowers should be;
And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys and desires.

in the link www.k-state.edu/english/baker/english233/Blake-Garden_of_Love.htm (http://www.k-state.edu/english/baker/english233/Blake-Garden_of_Love.htm)

[Theopesta]

as I understand the felix culpa = fortunate fall
this dogma speak about the predestination of the fall or original sin which lead the incarnation
but this mean: negation of the whole idea of free will also, I think it may lead to pelagianism, as man not make the original sin with his complete free will according to the doctrine of the felix culpa .

Is GOD fair in condemning man and then saving him?!
Can any one give excusation about the sin?

the word fortunate fall not in harmony with ROM 5: 12- 21
there is contradiction!

also, I feel this dogma is one of the consequences of the catholic dogma about original justice and the human i.e preternatural and supernatural gifts.

I will warmly welcome the more clarification or correction
IN ONE CHRIST
theopesta
p.s. I apologise about the repeated posts 273, 274

[Theopesta]

Br. Byron:

many thanks for this intelligent thread, while waiting the knowledgables' response I find these interested links:

[www.geocities.com/magdamun/white.html (http://www.geocities.com/magdamun/white.html)]
[www.iasm.info/main/iasmdocs/kir-mormonfelixculpa.html (http://www.iasm.info/main/iasmdocs/kir-mormonfelixculpa.html)]
[www.k-state.edu/english/baker/english233/g-felix_culpa.htm (http://www.k-state.edu/english/baker/english233/g-felix_culpa.htm)]
[www.answers.com/topic/paradise-lost?method=5&linktext=Paradise (http://www.answers.com/topic/paradise-lost?method=5&linktext=Paradise)]

many thanks

[Michael Howard Lake]

Dear Sister Theopesta,

All of these links you have posted certainly say something about "felix culpa." As an English teacher and sometime scholar, I am acquainted with the literature of both Milton and Blake. It is interesting how Milton, the hyper-Augustinian Arian, and Blake, the alchemistical disciple of Boehme and sexual deviant, dealt with the question of the Fall and the "happy fault" of sin and redemption. I found the link by the Seventh Day Adventist who was lambasting both the Mormons and the Roman Catholics quite laughable, though.

Felix culpa does depend upon the Western church's more juridical approach to the whole "mystery of iniquity" since Adam's sin. Hence, we see in the poem by Blake you posted first the dichotomy between "sin" and the law. Blake is saying that if what he calls in another poem the "mind-forged manacles" of social prohibition or taboo were lifted, all people would naturally fornicate without a hint of guilt. Perhaps he is saying here that the "culpa" isn't really "felix" after all.

But then, this leads to another question: How does Orthodoxy deal with the potentially anti-nomian interpretations of St. Paul's saying that "without the law I would not know sin"? The West is drowning in the effects of sins committed as acts of personal liberation.

Your brother in IHC XPC,

Michael

[Klod]

There is no "fortunate" fall. Not, at least, in the orthodox church. Neither can it be found, I think, in the Fathers.

The way I think about it, is that coming into existence within God's creation is a fortunate thing in itself. Man's being and living is a fortunate thing, a divine gift, a positive position, which can be overturned by the free will of Man. Even if it will be overturned, it will be so in relation to Man, without efecting God's positive disposition toward Man. On the contrary, God USES Man's unfortunate fall to raise him up again to his previous fortunate state, actually to a higher one, which he had before fall.

God doesnt need things and ways which do not belong to His nature, as are Fall, death, illness etc, to make Man understand His greatness and Grace. Man can experience Grace in fullness without falling, because Man is created in God's image, which is his ability to achive God's likeness.

There were only the dualists and gnostics who used to think that sin is necessary to bring grace, because they failed to see in creation and in Man's being the Hand of the One Triune God.

[Theopesta]

dear celestial father and brothers:

"I had not known sin but by the law" rom 7:7

in understanding to the language of st. paul I think we not take one text, as he say also:

"Why the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good." so on till vs 25

before the law the sin is present and condemned and known by the people as in case of Joseph and his brothers also, cain ... but the sin present as a guilt and evil not as transgression to the law

the law is the expression of what god will and determine the wrong and right

when st.paul say: "I had not known sin but by the law" not about the general nature of sin here he speak about the violation of the law of god

also those that not have law they conscience is their law rom 2: 11- 16

I am interested to know more about these point and to any correction

[Byron Jack Gaist]

Dear All,

Thank you Sr Theopesta (or shall I just write "Theopesta"? It seems proper to address you in your position as a nun). Thank you both for the interest you've shown in this question and for the insights you've offered into it. My thanks also go to other posters on this thread.

BTW=By The Way

BTW, noone has clarified whether, from a Roman Catholic perpective,the Felix Culpa refers to the sin of eating from the Tree of Knowledge, or to the Crucifixion, or to both? Most of us are talking about the Fall, but I've also heard this expression used in reference to the Crucifixion, which is why I'm asking.

Mr Lake, I am not a Blake scholar, as far as I know Blake was not a sexual deviant, though he did have a wish to have polyamorous affairs, which he never actualised because his wife didn't agree to it. He spent a long, and as far as I know again, happy monogamous marriage with her. But I do stand to be corrected, as I also know he had revolutionary ideas, and I may be mistaken about his ultimate fidelity in his marriage. The poem posted by Sr Theopesta on the "Garden of Love" seems to point precisely to this dillemma of Blake's, namely that somehow free, natural, innocent humanity has become "filled with graves,
And tomb-stones where flowers should be" by "Priests in black gowns...binding with briars my joys and desires". I think Sr Theopesta may be right in pointing to a kind of pelagianism in this viewpoint (human nature is untainted by the Fall & man can save himself by his own efforts), but I'm not sure I understand where the felix culpa comes into it, which seems to be stating the opposite of Pelagius, namely that the Fall is absolutely necessary so that man may experience grace and the choice between good and evil may be meaningful. Mmmhm...come to think of it again, perhaps the felix culpa implies pelagianism in the sense that, if the Fall is necessary, then humans are not to blame for their choice of evil over good?

In Christ
Byron

[Scott Pierson]

I think blessed Augustine didnt take into account what many of the Fathers said... That Christ would have become Incarnate and brought about our deification even if sin or the fall never took place. God didnt need us to sin to bring that about. Christ did work to bring good out of evil but he could have done so without the evil arising in the first place.

[Ken McRae]

... many of the Fathers said ... That Christ would have become Incarnate and brought about our deification even if sin or the fall never took place.

Which Fathers said this? Perhaps I am mistaken, but it seems to me that the First Adam was created in a deified state, and enjoyed a blessed union and communion with God in Eden; and from this sinless and deified state of grace he fell into corruption and mortality (death). I cannot recall any Fathers who taught the Incarnation of Christ would have occured despite the Fall. If many Fathers taught this, as you say, that man was not created in a deified state, then it should be relatively easy for you to produce a few direct quotes. I'd very much appreciate that! Thanks.

[M.C. Steenberg]

I think blessed Augustine didnt take into account what many of the Fathers said... That Christ would have become Incarnate and brought about our deification even if sin or the fall never took place.


Which Fathers said this?

Theophilus, Justin, Irenaeus, Cyril of Jerusalem, Cyril of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, Isaac of Syria, ...... :-)

INXC, Matthew

[Ken McRae]

Thanks Matthew, but I'd still like to see some quotes, if possible, as it seems to me the statement, "That Christ would have become Incarnate and brought about our deification even if sin or the fall never took place," implies that the First Adam was not originally created in a deified state of grace. How do you bring about the deificiation of a man that is already deified, who has never fallen from his original state of grace, or ever lost his "original" divine likeness?

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Theophilus, you wrote:


Thanks Matthew, but I'd still like to see some quotes, if possible, as it seems to me the statement, "That Christ would have become Incarnate and brought about our deification even if sin or the fall never took place," implies that the First Adam was not originally created in a deified state of grace. How do you bring about the deificiation of a man that is already deified, and has never fallen from his first state of grace, but has retained his original deified state of grace?

If you use the forum search system (http://www.monachos.net/forum/search.php) to explore a bit, you'll find that this topic has in fact been discussed quite a bit here before - and if I recall correctly, with amply quotations and references. The archives of past conversations are becoming quite a resource through the years.

The classic passages in the early Church are Irenaeus Adversus haereses 4.38.1-3 (among many other passages in this text); Theophilus Ad Autolycum 2.25.

INXC, Matthew

[Michael Astley]

Thanks Matthew, but I'd still like to see some quotes, if possible, as it seems to me the statement, "That Christ would have become Incarnate and brought about our deification even if sin or the fall never took place," implies that the First Adam was not originally created in a deified state of grace. How do you bring about the deificiation of a man that is already deified, who has never fallen from his original state of grace, or ever lost his "original" divine likeness?

I know that this reply is coming over a year late, Theophilius, but as I have been taught, the teaching that our first parents were created in an already deified state is a Catholic teaching - not an Orthodox one. It is the one with which I was raised as an Anglican and is one of the main differences that I noticed when I began to explore Orthodoxy. In fact, the expression of God's love exhibited in the Orthodox understanding is one of the reasons that I came to love Orthodoxy so.

Scripture does not tell us that man was created in God's likeness. Rather, it tells us that man was created in God's image. There appears to be a distinction between image and likeness. As it has been taught to me, the image of God in man is the divine Name written on our hearts - the potential to grow in a loving, nurturing relationship, into oneness with the divine life of the Trinity. The likeness of God in man is the realisation of that - the fulfilling of the image.

If we look at what genesis actually says:


Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, according to our likeness;

The verse says that God would make man “according to” his likeness. Other translations say “after” his likeness. None of them says "in" his likeness. We understand the likeness to be the full realisation of theosis – the completion of our journey of becoming one with the Holy Trinity, fully sharing in their life, their holiness, their knowledge, and their communion. If we read on a few verses, we hear:


So God created mankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

When it comes to the actual act of creating, there is nothing said about likeness, for that is still to be realised. We are only created in God’s image. Achieving the likeness of God is the whole point of our Christian life.

The Fall, therefore, was not a fall from some already deified state. (If man was already deified - already sharing in the divine life of the Holy Trinity, how could he sin?) Rather, the Fall was a fall from the journey of theosis. It was a fall from the loving, nurturing relationship with God in which we were to grow into what he would have us be, in conforming our hearts, minds, wills, bodies, and our whole being to Him. Man removed himself from this. That was the Fall. While he was still immature, man set his own will above that of God, for the fulfilling of his own desires. This is mirrored in the lives of each of us when we lose our innocence and "realise that we are naked", when we commit our own actual sins.

While we, living under the state of the Fall, can never presume to know for certain what would have been had the Fall never happened, it seems quite fitting that the Incarnation and Ascension - God becoming man and taking the human nature into himself - would always have been part of the divine plan for our growth into union with Him. The difference is that, because the Fall has happened, in taking our human nature upon himself, God also took what came along with that, which was death - death in which He shared and which He conquered by his glorious Resurrection, hence "trampling down death by death". It was necessary for Him to restore to the human nature that which was lost before He would take it into the divine life but that restoration, according to those Fathers who see the Incarnation as being part of the divine plan from the outset, was not the primary purpose. This seems to me to be a much healthier understanding of God and his mercy and love than the Catholic (pace, my Catholic friends) understanding, which essentially sees Christ's coming as a sort of contingency plan in response to man's sin.

Therefore, O felix culpa, ("O happy fault!", as it appears in the Exultet from the pre-schism Orthodox West and currently used in some Orthodox communities today), cannot be understood from an Orthodox perspective as the Fall necessitating the Incarnation and Ascension. However, it seems to me that, had man not sinned, death would not have been introduced, and that the Death and Resurrection of Christ would never have needed to happen. Therefore, while it may well have been the case that, out of love, God had always intended to become man and elevate man to the divine life for our theosis, in so doing He also took on the redemptive role of restoring that part of man's nature that man had corrupted through sin. Therefore, in that sense only, "O felix culpa!" can be understood in an Orthodox way.

Sadly, this understanding does not allow me to any longer be able to sing what had for years been one of my favourite Christmass carols, Adam lay ybounden:


Adam lay ybounden, bounden in a bond;
four thousand winter thought he not too long.
And all was for an apple, an apple that he took,
as clerkes finden written in their book.
Ne had the apple taken been,
ne had never Our Ladye a been heavené Queen.
Blessèd be the time that apple taken was!
Therefore, we moun singen: Deo gracias!

Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware) in The Orthodox Way has this to say:


The Incarnation of Christ, then, is God's supreme act of deliverance, restoring us to communion with himself. But what would have happened if there had never been a fall? Would God have chosen to become man, even if man had never sinned? Should the Incarnation be regarded simply as God's response to the predicament of fallen man, or is it in some way part of the eternal purpose of God? Should we look behind the fall, and see God's act of becoming man as the fulfilment of man's true destiny?

To this hypothetical question it is not possible for us, in our present situation, to give any final answer. Living as we do under the conditions of the fall, we cannot clearly imagine what God's relation to mankind would have been, had the fall never occurred. Christian writers have therefore in most cases limited their discussion of the Incarnation to the context of man's fallen state. But there are a few who have ventured to take a wider view, most notably St Isaac the Syrian and St Maximus the Confessor in the East, and Duns Scotus in the West. The Incarnation, says St Isaac, is the most blessed and joyful thing that could possibly have happened to the human race. Can it be right, then, to assign as cause for this joyful happening something which might never have occurred, and indeed ought never to have done so? Surely, St Isaac urges, God's taking of our humanity is not to be understood as an act of restoration, not only as a response to man's sin, but also more fundamentally as an act of love, an expression of God's own nature. Even had there been no fall, God in his own limitless, outgoing love would still have chosen to identify himself with his creation by becoming man.